Design and Development of an Automatic Device for Packing Spherical-shaped Fruits

The objective of this research was to design and develop an automatic device for displacing and placing the spherical-shaped fruits in the trays, with minimum damage to flesh. A planar two-degree-of-freedom tray mechanism was designed which placed the tray in the exact position when the gripper released a fruit. Two platforms with two independent linear motions, along perpendicular directions, were used. Finally, an electronic control system was developed to control the motion of the whole system and perform the motions in the pre-defined time sequences. Many tests on gripper, arm and tray performances were performed. In the tests, a spherical-shaped fruit such as apple with three different shapes, namely, oblong, conic and oblate were used. The results showed that the device had the ability to pick and release the oblong apples more effectively.